


Old Wounds

by profanesouls



Series: Rebel Yell [4]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Horror, Kindred Related Trauma, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profanesouls/pseuds/profanesouls
Summary: They sat like this for a while until Mickey pulled back, her hands resting against Nines’ shoulders. She wondered, vaguely, how she got so lucky. Up until recently, Mickey had been conditioned to believe that she could only rely on herself. Selfishness was more practical, she used to think. It had kept her alive thus far, but simply focusing on survival was no way to live.In the world of vampires, working alone was a risk. Lone wolves didn’t survive long; it was safer and smarter to hunt with a pack. She found her pack with the Unbound, but more importantly, she realized, she found a home.
Relationships: Nines Rodriguez/Original Character(s), Nines Rodriguez/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Rebel Yell [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902790
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Old Wounds

When the sun began to rise over downtown Los Angeles, Mickey felt exhaustion weigh down on her limbs. Kindred were not meant to stay awake during the daylight hours, but the power of the Blood let her fight off the oblivion of day sleep, if only for a little while. She didn’t want to sleep just yet, not when she was still basking in the bliss; her body boneless and spent. She was currently nestled against Nines, his unrising chest beneath her cheek, one hand wrapped around her waist. Day-sleep had claimed him just minutes before and Mickey took a moment to just observe.

Her finger dragged lightly over the curve of his jaw, her touch feather-light and barely there. Not that she was worried about waking him, anyhow. The ghost of her touch continued down his broad shoulders, down the muscles of his arms, to his hands; his hands that Mickey could never get enough of when he touched her. Further still her hands moved, traveling along the planes of his abdomen, all toned and hard muscle. She stopped when she reached his chest, her palm pressed right above where his heart would have been beating. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the dull _thud, thud_ — but that’s all it would be: an imagination. 

Mickey’s gaze lingered on the bare skin of his throat, now decorated with several fresh, purple bruises. A feline grin tugged at the corners of her mouth as she prided herself on her handiwork. They wouldn’t linger, much to her disdain, but for the moment she could reminisce and recall the sounds Nines made when she nipped, bit, and marked at his neck. 

Wrapped up in her reverie of bliss, the exhaustion that pulled at her limbs pressed down hard against her eyes. As the pressure of day-sleep consumed her, she was not welcomed with the dark comfort of oblivion. 

Colors swarmed at the edges of her vision, sounds echoing too far away for her to hear. Her limbs felt heavy, like her bones were replaced with lead. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t see because she couldn’t open her eyes. Her body was moved, but she wasn’t controlling the actions, like she was a makeshift puppet on a string. Foreign hands gripped her and their touch brought a surge of panic deep in her gut. 

Her knees slammed hard against the ground, but she couldn’t open her mouth to yelp in surprise. The noise got caught in her throat as her chest exploded in agony. It flared up her throat, aching behind her eyes, and she couldn’t focus on anything but the pain. She barely noticed the feeling return to her limbs, didn’t register her surroundings, all she could think about was the hole in her chest. 

She felt those foreign hands on her shoulders, anchoring her in place, but as Mickey blinked away the fuzziness from her vision, that panic surged again. She recognized the wooden floor under her knees, the red velvet curtains that hung against the sides of the stage, the stage lights that were too bright. 

Most importantly, though, she recognized the man who stood in front of her. His suit was impeccable, not a stitch out of place. His blonde hair was perfectly groomed. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him. It was like cotton balls had been stuffed in her ears. She knew what he was saying, the words an echo from her past, but she couldn’t hear him clearly. 

No, no, this wasn’t right. Lacroix was _dead_. 

The panic that flooded Mickey’s veins quickly turned to fear. She struggled to break free, but the hands that gripped her shoulders held her in a vice-like grip. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she desperately willed herself to wake up. This wasn’t real, she told herself, just _wake up_. 

But she was not given such a luxury. 

When Mickey opened her eyes, she was still trapped in the theatre. 

A scream threatened to erupt from her throat. As she turned her head, she expected to see the face of her sire; the man who murdered her and brought her into the world of vampires against her will. Instead, though, she saw a man with no face. It was like someone had smudged all the features off his skin, leaving him as a blank slate. Mickey recoiled, but the hands that held her kept her in place. She stared, horrified, at the blank face of her sire. He had no mouth to speak, no eyes to see her with, no nose to smell her fear. 

Mickey almost screamed again when she heard the voice of LaCroix against her ear, now crystal clear. 

“Forgive me.” 

The scream finally tore free from her throat, but no sound came out, only plumes of black smoke. 

As the Sheriff brought his sword down against her sire’s neck, granting him the Final Death, the smoke in her throat turned to ash. Mickey didn’t need to breathe, but she coughed around the ash, tried to get the taste out of her mouth and teeth. Her sire’s body turned to cinders and Mickey’s throat burned along with him. 

Mickey turned her eyes away from the smoking remains of her faceless sire, her desperate gaze turning to the audience. But where she expected to see a roomful of Kindred, brought before the Prince to witness her and her sire’s execution, all she found was an empty room and empty seats. 

She was alone. 

The next scream that tore from her throat came out as a choked sob. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t real, this wasn’t how it happened! 

Her desperate gaze tried to see through the dark, tried to find him — the man she loved who saved her from a premature execution. She called out to him, desperately wanting him to appear, to swoop in and save the say like he’d done before. 

No matter how many times she screamed for him, he didn’t show up. She was alone. 

With an empty theatre, with no Anarchs, no Nines to interrupt her trial and save her life, Mickey knew she was going to die; for real, this time. 

Bloody tears stained her cheeks. The Beast howled in her ears. Her claws dug into the wooden floor of the theatre, but no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t escape. LaCroix stood in front of her now and he was smiling. He was smiling and his teeth were stained red. Mickey couldn’t even muster up enough bravado to bare her fangs. His hand darted out, gripping her jaw hard, and it was stained red, too. 

He said, “The game begins. A pawn is sacrificed. _Forgive me_.” 

The weight of the Sheriff’s sword pressed down against her neck. As he raised it, ready to swing it down and separate Mickey’s head from her shoulders, she screamed out again, and this time the sound rang throughout the theatre as he brought the sword down. 

The same scream tore from Mickey’s throat as she pulled herself free from her day-sleep. Her hands instantly went to her throat as she took unnecessary gulps of air. She swore she could still feel the blade of the sword against the back of her neck, could still feel the taste of smoke and ash in her throat. She turned to see Nines still next to her, still dead to the world, and a relief so strong flooded through her that she nearly sobbed. 

Her hands shook as adrenaline pumped through her veins. The walls of her bedroom felt too constricting. The shadows taunted her; the curtains on her windows looked too much like red velvet in the dark. Pulling herself free from her tangled bed sheets, she reached out and grabbed the nearest article of clothing, pulled it over her naked frame, and escaped to the living room. 

The sun had just dipped below the horizon, leaving a blanket of darkness over Los Angeles once again. Mickey grabbed her cigarettes from the coffee table and pulled one free, lighting it with shaking fingers. The cool night air from the open window brushed against her skin like a gentle breeze. As she curled up on the edge of her couch, she took a long drag from the cigarette. With each drag, Mickey retreated into herself. The nightmare had been so visceral, so vivid; it brought up memories she desperately had wanted to forget.

Ever since she’d been Embraced, Mickey had been on the move; constantly trying to survive each night, moving around Los Angeles, doing other Kindred’s bidding. Not once did anyone ask her how she felt. Sure, they gave her tips on how to survive and how to make the most of the situation, but she never got any sort of closure or consolation. It was always just the same old advice: don’t become a monster, don’t lose sight of your humanity, don’t become a victim to the Beast. 

The smoke that coated her tongue soon started to taste like bitterness. Mickey desperately wanted answers but had no way of receiving them. Her sire was dead, LaCroix had seen to that, so there was no chance to question him as to why he did this to her. LaCroix had called him a ‘respected member of their organization’ but, if that was the case, why did he Embrace her illegally? It all came back to one question: _why, why, why?_

Mickey swore and lit another cigarette.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, but nothing about the Kindred existence was fair. Her short life as Kindred had been a rough one, full of stumbles and mistakes, chaos and bloodshed, destruction and scheming. If this nightmare was indicative of anything, it was that Mickey was not coping with it well. 

As she sat there, lost in a cycle of resentment and unanswered questions, she didn’t hear Nines wake up. As he pulled himself free from the blackness of day-sleep, he knew something was off when he didn’t feel the familiar comfort of Mickey’s body next to him. He reached out, but his fingers only connected with the soft bed sheets. A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he tried to stifle the worries that fluttered in his chest. Nines didn’t think of himself as a clingy sort of man, and he trusted her, but he hoped she would have said something before leaving him alone in her bed. 

Maybe she just stepped out to feed, he thought. His own Hunger ached in his gums, the pain sharpening to an acute degree, reminding him of what he was, what he would always be, a victim to the Blood. Silently, he began to shrug on his clothes, but halfway through his task, he realized one of his shirts was missing. 

Discarded and forgotten on the floor, like most of their clothes had been from the night before, a haphazard trail of fabric that led to the destination of Mickey’s bed. She’d formally returned to the Kindred scene, her support fully behind the Unbound and the Anarch Movement. Both she and Nines had been busy; coordinating patrols, keeping an eye out for any lingering Camarilla agents or Sabbat packs, and making sure the Anarchs kept their foothold of control over Los Angeles. They’d been so preoccupied lately that they’d barely had any time for themselves, so when they did, they took full advantage of it. 

As he exited the bedroom and travelled the length of the hallway, he didn’t need to venture far to find her. 

Still curled up on the edge of the couch, her face turned toward the open window. The moonlight illuminated her face, but her features were slightly masked by a thin layer of smoke. A cigarette hung loosely between her fingers — what looked to be one of many, Nines noted, as he glanced at the ashtray that sat against the windowsill — and her eyes, her usually sharp, cold steel eyes, looked vacant.

She was still dressed in nothing but Nines’ shirt, the garment draped loosely over her smaller frame. The dark ink of her tattoos stood out starkly against her pale skin; the tattoos Nines had gotten very familiar with the night before. He’d traced his fingers over them, admiring the details of each design, as Mickey told him what each of them meant, where and when she got them, and he had chuckled at her aggravated dismay of not being able to get anymore. 

Nines leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and his eyebrow raised in amusement, “Is that my shirt?” 

Mickey acted as though she didn’t hear him. There was no laughter, no roll of her eyes or coy smirk; no acknowledgement of his question at all. That vacant look still clouded her vision. She was deathly still, the only movement being the occasional flick of her thumb to discard the ash on her cigarette. Nines’ expression of amusement quickly faded, his brow furrowing as he approached her. 

“Mickey? You okay?” 

The barest shift of her eyes, like a flash of lightning before a crack of thunder. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, the muscle weighed down by the smoke and bitterness. The words she wanted to say were lodged in her throat, driven back by the roadblock of her mind. One by one, brick by brick, her walls were back up and sealed airtight. A quick drag of her cigarette, the inhale and exhale allowing her to get some words free. 

“Fine.” 

A lie — Nines damn well knew it, too. It was like Mickey had flipped a switch overnight. She’d been so open before; he had her trust in the palm of his hand. He’d trailed his fingers down her spine and she’d become an open book. Now the book was shut; tucked away in the corners of her mind and unreachable. He frowned again, that flutter of worry more persistent now. His fingers dragged down the length of his jaw, a clear tell he was lost in thought. Mickey’s expression was impossible to read; perfectly blank, an expert mask. Nines moved to sit on the couch and angled his body so that he was fully facing her.

A sliver of tension slid off her shoulders, but it wasn’t enough to snap her out of whatever reverie she was lost in. 

“I do somethin’ wrong?” Nines asked, but in his gut, he knew the answer was no. If she had a problem with him, she would have said something. She was blunt, her words usually escaping past her mouth before her brain could catch up. So, this sudden silence, this isolation from him, after everything they’d been through, was uncharacteristic. 

“No,” Mickey confirmed, cracks of incredulity forming in her vacant expression. Another drag of her cigarette, her reply exhaled in a cloud of smoke, “of course not.” 

“Then what’s goin’ on with you?” 

Her eyes remained fixated on something outside, but she tore her gaze away from it for a moment. Though her face remained expressionless, Nines could see the struggle of something raging in the depths of her gaze. Mickey battled not to retreat into herself further, to hide behind her walls and lock herself up tight. Bad habits were hard to break; her cigarettes, her self-destructive behavior, her incessant need to run and hide. She could talk to Nines about anything, she knew that. She desperately tried to remind herself of that, but something didn’t cooperate. Her throat felt too constricted, the ghost of the Sheriff’s sword pressed against it, making it impossible to speak. 

When she didn’t speak, Nines sighed. Tentatively, he reached for her hand, and was comforted when she didn’t pull away. The pad of this thumb brushed against her knuckles, the gentleness of the gesture nearly enough to make Mickey crumble. His touch, this act of casual intimacy, was more of an anchor than her cigarettes could ever hope to be. 

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” he said, his voice soft, “but I’m here. I’ll sit here all night if I have to.” 

Another crack in her façade as her face softened. Mickey stubbed out her cigarette, a slight tremble in her hand as she did so. She raked a shaky hand through her dark hair as she tried to find her voice through the haze and smoke. She kept her hand inside Nines’, each brush of his thumb against her skin strengthening her resolve. 

“I didn’t know I could still dream.” 

“It’s rare, but it can happen,” Nines explained, “usually varies from Kindred to Kindred. Some of us don’t dream at all, some do, some get nightmares.” 

A quiet scoff, “figures I’d get stuck with nightmares.” 

“What was it about?” 

The visions of the dream were still fresh in her mind. It was hard to distinguish dream from memory. The adrenaline that had previously shot through her veins like venom had subsided, but she was left with an unsteady voice and shaking hands. The fear she had felt when waking up from the nightmare — Mickey hadn’t felt true wild, primal fear like that in a while. She didn’t like feeling afraid. It made her feel helpless. After LaCroix had met the Final Death, she told herself she was never going to feel like that again. 

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips before she spoke, “I was back in the theatre.” 

Nocturne Theatre. The place where Mickey had been formally introduced to the world of vampires, where she first became an unwilling pawn in LaCroix’s schemes. An accused fledgling who was being charged for the crimes committed by her sire. Mickey’s chest still ached with phantom pains, courtesy of where the stake pierced her heart and she was rendered paralyzed. She had to sit there, restrained, as the Prince executed her sire right in front of her. 

Were it not for the man who now sat next to her, her fate would have been the same. 

Another deep inhale as Mickey struggled to say the words out loud, “It was like I was back there. Everything was the same: LaCroix was there, so was the Sheriff. His lackeys, too, holdin’ me down. When I looked at my sire, though, I couldn’t see his face. It was like a smudge, I guess, I don’t know, like my brain couldn’t remember what he looked like.” 

Nines felt the tremble in her fingers as he held her hand. He gave her a reassuring squeeze to continue. 

“When they killed him, I tried to scream for help, but all that came out was smoke. And the theatre — it was empty, Nines. You weren’t there; no one was.” 

Mickey cursed herself as she felt her throat begin to ache. She cursed herself again when she felt the pinprick stinging of her eyes filling with tears. She dared to try and look away and return her gaze to the window, hoping Nines wouldn’t see. Her vulnerability was like a raw wound, the trauma of her Embrace causing it to flare and bleed. She caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep it from wobbling. 

“I couldn’t see you,” she said, hoping to God her voice would stop shaking, “you weren’t there. You couldn’t stop him. I screamed and screamed and no one heard me. I was all alone in there this time, and —”

Another curse as the tears began to fall, staining her pale cheeks crimson. Nines didn’t say anything, but he wrapped his arms around her frame and pulled her to him. She pressed her face into the crook of his neck as held her around her waist. One of his hands cradled the back of her head, his fingers gently brushing through the hair at the nape of her neck. A choked sob was muffled against his skin and Nines gently pushed at her shoulders. 

“Mickey, hey, look at me.” 

His thumb guided her chin up, but her gaze stubbornly pointed toward the floor. Nines leaned forward, his lips gently brushing away the tears that stained her cheek, then the other, then capturing her mouth with his. Mickey sighed against his mouth, her body sagging against his. When they broke apart, the greys of her irises were bright against the crimson stains around her eyes. 

“You’re not alone,” Nines reminded her, his hands moving to rest on her hips, “you’re not in that theatre. LaCroix’s dead and gone; he can’t hurt you anymore.” 

Mickey nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She shivered as Nines’ thumbs brushed over her hip bones. 

“It’s just… hard. Talkin’ about it. Thinkin’ about it,” she said finally, her voice thick with emotion. She was just happy the tears had stopped. 

“I know, but it’ll get easier. I promise.” 

They lapsed into comfortable silence. Mickey settled back into the crook of Nines’ neck, his arms resuming their position around her waist. Idly, she tugged at his shirt, and said, “I got bloodstains on this.” 

He chuckled quietly, “they’ll wash out.” 

“Better not tell anyone I was cryin’.” 

“Yeah? Or what?” 

A low growl, followed by a sharp nip to his neck, and he grinned in response. 

They sat like this for a while until Mickey pulled back, her hands resting against Nines’ shoulders. She wondered, vaguely, how she got so lucky. Up until recently, Mickey had been conditioned to believe that she could only rely on herself. Selfishness was more practical, she used to think. It had kept her alive thus far, but simply focusing on survival was no way to live. 

In the world of vampires, working alone was a risk. Lone wolves didn’t survive long; it was safer and smarter to hunt with a pack. She found her pack with the Unbound, but more importantly, she realized, she found a home. 

“I love you,” she said into his neck. 

Nines pressed a kiss to the top of her head, “I love you, too.”

The invisible wounds left by her sire weren’t going to go away overnight, neither would the mental scars from what LaCroix put her through, but Mickey didn’t have to heal alone.

**Author's Note:**

> this was part of a prompt filler on tumblr, but i really was inspired with just how much the fledgling goes through during the length of the game, and how mickey, specifically, would be coping with all of that! plus, can't go wrong with a little hurt & comfort too 😉
> 
> as always, thank you for taking the time to read my work! if you enjoyed reading this, please leave me a kudos or a comment letting me know what you thought; they inspire me to write more! and i always reply to comments!! 💖💖and honorable mention to my wonderful gf, who gave this a once over for me!


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